Chapter XI: Part 11

The society's advance was chequered by several controversies. (a) Its
fundamental law to circulate the Bible alone, without note or comment,
was vehemently attacked by Bishop Marsh and other divines of the
Church of England, who insisted that the Prayer Book ought to
accompany the Bible. (b) Another more serious controversy related to
the circulation--chiefly through affiliated societies on the
continent--of Bibles containing the Deutero-canonical books of the Old
Testament. In 1826 the society finally resolved that its fundamental
law be fully and distinctly recognized as excluding the circulation
"of those Books, or parts of Books, which are usually termed
Apocryphal." This step, however, failed to satisfy most of the
society's supporters in Scotland, who proceeded to form themselves
into independent organizations, grouped for the most part round
centres at Edinburgh and Glasgow. These were finally amalgamated in
1861 into the National Bible Society of Scotland. (c) A third dispute
turned upon the admissibility of non-Trinitarians to the privilege of
co-operation. The refusal of the society to alter its constitution so
as formally to exclude such persons led to the formation (1831) of the
Trinitarian Bible Society, which is still in existence. (d) A fourth
controversy arose out of the restrictive renderings of the term
"baptize" and its cognate terms, adopted by William Carey and his
colleagues in their famous "Serampore Versions," towards publishing
which the society had contributed up to 1830 nearly L30,000. Protests
from other Indian missionaries led the society to determine that it
could circulate only such versions as gave neutral renderings for the
terms in question. As a sequel, the Bible Translation Society was
founded in 1839 to issue versions embodying distinctively Baptist
renderings.

By one of its original laws the British and Foreign Bible Society
could circulate no copies of the Scriptures in English other than King
James's Version of 1611. In 1901 this law was widened to include the
Revised English Version of 1881-1885.

From its foundation the society has successfully laboured to promote
new and improved versions of the Scriptures. In 1804 the Bible, or
some part of it, had been printed in about fifty-five different
tongues. By the year 1906 versions, more or less complete, had been
published in more than 530 distinct languages and dialects, and in 400
of these the work of translation, printing or distribution had been
promoted by the society. Translations or revisions in scores of
languages are still being carried on by companies of scholars and
representative missionaries in different parts of the world, organized
under the society's auspices and largely at its expense. New versions
are made, wherever practicable, from the original Hebrew or Greek
text, and the results thus obtained have a high philological value and
interest. The society's interdenominational character has commonly
secured--what could hardly otherwise have been attained--the
acceptance of the same version by missions of different churches
working side by side. The society supplies the Scriptures to missions
of every Reformed Communion on such terms that, as a rule, the books
distributed by the missions involve no charge on their funds. Except
under special circumstances, the society does not encourage wholesale
free distribution, but provides cheap editions at prices which the
poorest can pay. On the whole it receives from sales about 40% of what
it expends in preparing, printing and circulating the books.

During the year 1905-1906 the society's circulation reached the
unprecedented total of 5,977,453 copies, including 968,683 Bibles and
1,326,475 Testaments. Of the whole 1,921,000 volumes were issued from
the Bible House, London, and 1,331,000 were in English or Welsh,
circulating chiefly in England and the British colonies. The other
main fields of distribution were as follows:--France, 203,000 copies;
Central Europe, 679,000; Italy, 117,000; Spain and Portugal, 120,000;
the Russian empire, 595,000; India, Burma and Ceylon, 768,000; Japan,
286,000; and China, 1,075,000 (most of these last being separate
gospels).

The society spends L10,000 a year in grants to religious and
philanthropic agencies at home. Outside the United Kingdom it has its
own agencies or secretaries in twenty-seven of the chief cities of the
world, and maintains depots in 200 other centres. It employs 930
Christian colporteurs abroad, who sold in 1905-1906 over 2,250,000
volumes. It supports 670 native Christian Bible-women in the East, in
connexion with forty different missionary organizations. The centenary
festival in 1904 was celebrated with enthusiasm by the Reformed
Churches and their foreign missions throughout the world. Messages of
congratulation came from the rulers of every Protestant nation in
Christendom, and a centenary thanksgiving fund of 250,000 guineas was
raised for extending the society's work. During the year 1905-1906 the
society expended L238,632, while its income was L231,964 (of which
L98,204 represented receipts from sales). Up to the 31st of March 1906
the society had expended altogether L14,686,072, and had issued
198,515,199 copies of the Scriptures--of which more than 78,000,000
were in English.

_In Scotland_ the Edinburgh Bible Society (1809), the Glasgow Bible Society (1812), and other Scottish auxiliaries, many of which had dissociated themselves from the British and Foreign Bible Society after 1826, were finally incorporated (1861) with the National Bible Society of Scotland, which has carried on vigorous work all over the world, especially in China. During 1905, with an income of L27,108, it issued 1,590,881 copies, 907,000 of which were circulated in China. Its total issues from 1861 to 1906 were 26,106,265 volumes.

_In Ireland_ the Hibernian Bible Society (originally known as the Dublin Bible Society) was founded in 1806, and with it were federated kindred Irish associations formed at Cork, Belfast, Derry, &c. The Hibernian Bible Society, whose centenary was celebrated in 1906, had then issued a total of 5,713,837 copies. It sends an annual subsidy to aid the foreign work of the British and Foreign Bible Society.

_Other European Societies._--The impulse which founded the British and Foreign Bible Society in 1804 soon spread over Europe, and, notwithstanding the turmoils of the Napoleonic wars, kindred organizations on similar lines quickly sprang up, promoted and subsidized by the British and Foreign Bible Society. Many of these secured royal and aristocratic patronage and encouragement--the tsar of Russia, the kings of Prussia, Bavaria, Sweden, Denmark and Wuerttemberg all lending their influence to the enterprise.

Within fourteen years the following Bible societies were in active operation: the Basel Bible Society (founded at Nuremberg, 1804), the Prussian Bible Society (founded as the Berlin Bible Society, 1805), the Revel Bible Society (1807), the Swedish Evangelical Society (1808), the Dorpat Bible Society (1811), the Riga Bible Society (1812), the Finnish Bible Society (1812), the Hungarian Bible Institution (Pressburg, 1812), the Wuerttemberg Bible Society (Stuttgart, 1812), the Swedish Bible Society (1814), the Danish Bible Society (1814), the Saxon Bible Society (Dresden, 1814), the Thuringian Bible Society (Erfurt, 1814), the Berg Bible Society (Eberfeld, 1814), the Hanover Bible Society (1814), the Hamburg-Altona Bible Society (1814), the Luebeck Bible Society (1814), the Netherlands Bible Society (Amsterdam, 1814). These were increased in 1815 by the Brunswick, Bremen, Schleswig-Holstein, Strassburg and Eichsfeld (Saxony) Bible Societies, and the Icelandic Bible Society. In 1816-1817 came the Norwegian Bible Society, the Polish Bible Society and ten minor German Bible Societies. Twelve cantonal societies had also been formed in Switzerland.

Up to 1816-1817 these societies had printed altogether 436,000 copies of the Scriptures, and had received from the British and Foreign Bible Society gifts amounting to over L62,000. The decision of the British and Foreign Bible Society in 1826 with regard to circulating the Apocrypha (see above) modified its relations with the most influential of these continental societies. Some of them were ultimately dissolved or suppressed through political or ecclesiastical opposition, the Roman Church proving especially hostile. But many of them still flourish, and are actively engaged in their original task.

The circulation of the Scriptures by German Bible Societies during
1905 was estimated as follows:--The Prussian Bible Society (Berlin),
182,000 copies; the Wuerttemberg Bible Institute (Stuttgart), 247,000;
the Berg Bible Society (Eberfeld), 142,000; the Saxon Bible Society
(Dresden), 44,000; the Central Bible Association (Nuremberg), 14,000;
the Canstein Bible Institute (Halle), the Schleswig-Holstein Bible
Society, the Hamburg-Altona Bible Society and others, together 56,000.

During 1905, nine cantonal Bible societies in Switzerland circulated
altogether 71,000 copies; the Netherlands Bible Society reported a
circulation of 54,544 volumes, 48,137 of which were in Dutch; the
Danish Bible Society circulated 45,289 copies; the Norwegian Bible
Society circulated 67,058 copies; and in Sweden the Evangelical
National Society distributed about 110,000 copies.

In Italy, by a departure from the traditional policy of the Roman
Church, the newly formed "Pious Society of St Jerome for the
Dissemination of the Holy Gospels" issued in 1901 from the Vatican
press a new Italian version of the Four Gospels and _Acts_. By the end
of 1905 the society announced that over 400,000 copies of this volume
had been sold at 2d. a copy.

In France, the _Societe biblique protestante de Paris_, founded in
1818, with generous aid from the British and Foreign Bible Society,
had a somewhat restricted basis and scope. In 1833 the _Societe
biblique francaise et etrangere_ was formed on wider lines; after its
dissolution in 1863, many of its supporters joined the _Societe
biblique de France_, which dates from 1864, and represents chiefly
members of the _Eglise libre_, and kindred French Evangelicals. During
1905 its issues were 34,475 copies, while the _Societe biblique
protestante de Paris_ issued 8061 copies.

Of these non-British societies the most noteworthy was established in
Russia. In December 1812, while "the last shattered remnants of
Napoleon's Grand Army struggled across the ice of the Niemen," the
tsar Alexander I. sanctioned plans for a Bible society, which was
promptly inaugurated at St Petersburg under the presidency of Prince
Galitzin. Through the personal favour of the tsar, it made rapid and
remarkable progress. Nobles and ministers of state, with the chief
ecclesiastics not only of the Russian Church but of the Roman, the
Uniat, the Armenian, the Greek, the Georgian and the Lutheran
Churches, found themselves constrained to serve on its committees. By
the close of 1823 the Russian Bible Society had formed 289
auxiliaries, extending eastwards to Yakutsk and Okhotsk; and had
received altogether L145,640. In 1824, however, Prince Galitzin ceased
to be procurator of the Holy Synod, and Seraphim, metropolitan of St
Petersburg, became president of the Russian Bible Society. And in
1826, soon after his accession, the tsar Nicholas I. issued a _ukase_
suspending the society's operations--after it had printed the
Scriptures in thirty different languages, seventeen of which were new
tongues, and had circulated 600,000 volumes from the Caucasus to
Kamchatka. In 1828 Nicholas I. sanctioned the establishment of a
Protestant Bible Society, which still exists, to supply the Scriptures
only to Protestant subjects of the tsar (cf. Th. Schiemann,
_Geschichte Russlands unter Nikolaus I._ vol. i. chap. ix.). In 1839
St Petersburg became the headquarters of an agency of the British and
Foreign Bible Society, which enjoys special facilities in Russia, and
now annually circulates about 600,000 copies of the Scriptures, in
fifty different languages, within the Russian empire.

_In America_ the earliest Bible society was founded at Philadelphia in 1808. Six more societies--including those of New York and of Massachusetts--were formed during 1809, and other societies, auxiliaries and associations quickly followed. In 1816 a convention of delegates representing 31 of these institutions met at New York and established the American Bible Society, with Elias Boudinot as president. All kindred organizations in the states gradually became amalgamated with this national body, and the federation was completed in 1839 by the adhesion of the Philadelphia Society (which now changed its name to the Pennsylvania Bible Society). Not a few noteworthy versions of the Bible, such as those in Arabic, 15 dialects of Chinese, Armenian, and Zulu, and many American Indian, Philippine, and African languages have appeared under the auspices of the American Bible Society. Turkish, classical Chinese, and Korean versions have been made by the American and British societies jointly. The society's foreign agencies extend to China, Japan, Korea, the Turkish empire, Bulgaria, Egypt, Micronesia, Siam, Mexico, Central America, the South American republics, Cuba and the Philippines. In the year ending March 31st 1909 the income of the Society was $502,345, and it issued 2,153,028 copies of the Scriptures, nearly half of which went to readers outside the United States. The total distribution effected by the American Bible Society and its federated societies had in 1909 exceeded 84,000,000 volumes, in over a hundred different languages.

AUTHORITIES.--Besides the published reports of the societies in
question, the following works may be mentioned: J. Owen, _History of
the First Ten Years of the British and Foreign Bible Society_ (London,
1816-1820); G. Browne, _History of the Bible Society_ (London, 1859);
Bertram, _Geschichte der Cansteinschen Bibelanstalt_ (Halle, 1863); E.
Petavel, _La Bible en France_ (Paris, 1864); O. Douen, _Histoire de la
societe biblique protestante de Paris_ (Paris, 1868); G. Borrow, _The
Bible in Spain_ (London, 1849); W. Canton, _The History of the British
and Foreign Bible Society_ (London, 1904 foll.); J. Ballinger, _The
Bible in Wales_ (London, 1906); T.H. Darlow and H.F. Moule,
_Historical Catalogue of the Printed Editions of Holy Scripture_
(London, vol. i. 1903, vol. ii. 1908). (T. H. D.)

BIBLIOGRAPHY AND BIBLIOLOGY. The word [Greek: bibliographia] was used in post-classical Greek for the writing of books, and as late as 1761, in Fenning's _English Dictionary_, a bibliographer is defined as "one who writes or copies books." The transition from the meaning "a writing _of_ books" to that of "a writing _about_ books," was accomplished in France in the 18th century--witness the publication in 1763 of the _Bibliographie instructive_ of de Bure. In England the new meaning seems to have been popularized by the Rev. Thomas Frognall Dibdin early in the 19th century, while Southey preferred the rival form _bibliology_, which is now hardly used. Present custom inclines to restrict the province of bibliography to printed books as opposed to manuscripts, and on the other hand recognizes as coming within its scope almost everything in which a book-loving antiquary can be interested, including the history of printing (see TYPOGRAPHY), book-binding (q.v.), book-illustration (see ILLUSTRATION) and book-collecting (q.v.). The present article is only concerned with bibliography as the art of the examination, collation and description of books, their enumeration and arrangement in lists for purposes of information, and further with the literature of this subject, i.e. with the bibliography of bibliography.

_Examination and Collation._--Books are submitted to examination in order to discover their origin, or to test statements concerning it which there is reason to doubt, or to ascertain if they are perfect, and if perfect whether they are in their original condition or have been "made up" from other copies. The discovery of where, when and by whom a book, or fragment of a book, was printed, is the most difficult of these tasks, though as regards books printed in the 15th century it has been much facilitated by the numerous facsimiles enumerated under INCUNABULA (q.v.). In the article BOOK (q.v.) a sketch is given of the chief external characteristics of books in each century since the invention of printing. Familiarity with books of different ages and countries soon creates a series of general ideas as to the dates and places with which any combination of these characteristics may be connected, and an experienced bibliographer, more especially if he knows something of the history of paper, will quickly narrow down the field of inquiry sufficiently to make special search possible.

As regards the correction of mis-statements in early books as to their place and origin, glaring piracies such as the Lyonnese counterfeits of the octavo editions of the classics printed by Aldus at Venice, and the numerous unauthorized editions of works by Luther, professing to be printed at Wittenberg, have long ago been exposed. A different variety of the same kind of puzzle arises from the existence of numerous original editions with fictitious imprints. As early as 1499 a Brescia printer, in order to evade the privilege granted to Aldus, gave to an edition of Politian the spurious imprint "Florentiae," and in the 16th century many controversial books printed in England purported to have been issued in German towns, or with pleasant humour, "at Rome before the castle of S. Angel at the sign of S. Peter." Only a knowledge of the general characteristics which a book printed at such a place and such a time should possess will secure avoidance of these traps, but when suspicion has been aroused the whole story will often be found in such books as Weller's _Die maskirte Literatur der aelteren und neueren Sprachen_ (1856-1867), and _Die falschen und fingirten Druckoerte_ (1864), Brunet's _Imprimeurs imaginaires et libraires supposes_ (1866), de Brouillant's _La Liberte de la Presse en France; Histoire de Pierre du Marteau, imprimeur a Cologne, &c._ (1888); in the various bibliographies of Erotica and in Brunet's _Manuel de l'Amateur_ and other handbooks for the use of collectors. A special case of this problem of piracies and spurious imprints is that of the modern photographic or type-facsimile forgery of small books possessing a high commercial value, such as the early editions of the letter of Columbus announcing his discovery of the New World. Bad forgeries of this kind can be detected by the tendency of all photographic processes of reproduction to thicken letters and exaggerate every kind of defect, but the best of these imitations when printed on old paper require a specific knowledge of the originals and often cause great trouble. The type-facsimile forgeries are mostly of short pieces by Tennyson, George Eliot and A.C. Swinburne, printed (or supposed to have been printed--for it is doubtful if some of these "forgeries" ever had any originals) for circulation among friends. These trifles should never be purchased without a written guarantee.

When the edition to which a book belongs is known, further examination is needed to ascertain if it is perfect and in its original state. Where no standard collation is available, this can only be ascertained by a detailed examination of the quires or gatherings of which it is made up (see below). In the earliest books these are often very irregular. A large book was usually printed simultaneously in four or six sections on as many different presses, and the several compositors, if unable to end their sections at the end of a complete quire, would insert a single leaf to give more space, or sometimes leave a blank page, or half page, for lack of matter, occasionally adding the note _"Hic nullus est defectus."_ A careful examination of the text, a task from which bibliographers often shrink, and a comparison with other editions, are the only remedies in these cases.

If a copy contains the right number of leaves, the further question arises as to whether any of these have been supplied from other copies, or are in facsimile. Few collectors even now are educated enough to prefer copies in the condition in which the ravages of time have left them to those which have been "completed" by dealers; hence many old books have been "made up" with leaves from other copies, or not infrequently from other editions. These meddlings often defy detection, but proof of them may be found in differences in the height and colour of the paper, in the two corresponding leaves at either end of a folio quire both possessing a watermark, or in their wiremarks not corresponding, or (in very early books) by the ornamentation added by hand being in a different style.

When it has been ascertained that a copy contains the right number of leaves and that all these leaves are original, the last point to be settled is as to whether it differs in any respect from the standard collation. Owing to the extreme slowness of the presswork for the first two centuries after the invention of printing, there were more opportunities for making small corrections while an old book was passing through the press than there are in the case of modern ones, and on the other hand the balls used for inking the type sometimes caught up words or individual letters and these were replaced by the compositors as best they could. The small variations in the text noticed in different copies of the First Folio edition of Shakespeare, and again of Milton's _Paradise Lost_, are probably to be explained by a mixture of these two causes. Where a serious error was discovered after a sheet had been printed off, the leaf on which it occurred was sometimes cut out and a new leaf (called a "cancel") printed to replace it and pasted on to the rest of the sheet. Variations between different copies of the first edition of Herrick's _Hesperides_ which have puzzled all his editors are due to the presence of several of such cancels. Lastly, a printer when he had printed part of a book might wish to increase the size of the edition, and the leaves already printed off would have to be reprinted, thus causing a combination of identical and different leaves in different copies. The famous 42-line Bible of c. 1455, variously attributed to Gutenberg and to Fust and Schoeffer, and the _Valerius Maximus_ printed by Schoeffer in 1471, are instances of editions being thus enlarged while passing through the press. As each book was set up simultaneously on several different presses, the reprinted leaves occur at the beginning of each of the sections.

It should be mentioned that there are books of which it is difficult to find two copies in exact agreement. Either to quicken presswork or to comply with trade-regulations made in the interest of compositors, in some books of which large numbers were required, e.g. the _Paraphrases of Erasmus_, the _First Prayer-book of Edward VI._, and the "Songs and Sonnets" known as _Tottell's Miscellany_, each forme was set up two or more different times. The formes were then used at haphazard for printing, and both at this stage and when the printed sheets came to be stitched almost any number of different combinations might be made. The books named were all printed in the middle of the 16th century, but probably later instances could be produced.

_Description._--The ideal towards which all bibliographical work should be directed is the provision in an accessible form of a standard description of a perfect copy of every book of literary, historical or typographical interest as it first issued from the press, and of all the variant issues and editions of it. When such standard descriptions shall have been made, adequately checked and printed, it will be possible to describe every individual copy by a simple reference to them, with a statement of its differences, if any, and an insistence on the points bearing on the special object with which it is being re-described. Only in a few cases has any approach been made to a collection of such standard descriptions. One instance which may be cited is that of the entries of the 15th century books in the _Repertorium Bibliographicum_ of Ludwig Hain (1826-1838), which the addition of an asterisk marks as having been examined by Hain himself in the copies in the Royal library at Munich. The high standard of accuracy of these asterisked entries (save for the omission to note blank leaves at the beginning or end) has been so well established, and the _Repertorium_ is so widely known, that in many catalogues of incunabula the short title of the book together with the number of Hain's entry has been usefully substituted for a long description. Books printed at Oxford up to 1640 can be equally well described by their short titles and a reference to Mr Falconer Madan's _Early Oxford Press_ published in 1895. At present the number of works which can thus be taken as a standard is only small, owing partly to the greater and more accurate detail now demanded, partly to the absence of any system of co-operation among libraries, each of which is only willing to pay for catalogues relating exclusively to its own collections. It may be hoped that through the foundation of bibliographical institutes more work of this kind may be done.

A standard description of any book must, as a rule, consist of the following sections, though in the case of works which have no typographical interest, some of the details may be advantageously omitted:--(a) A literal transcript of the title-page, also of the colophon, if any, and of any headings or other portions of the book serving to distinguish it from other issues; (b) Statements as to the size or form of the book, the gatherings or quires of which it is made up, with the total number of leaves, the measurement of an uncut copy or of the type-page, a note of the types in which different parts of the book are printed, and a reference to any trustworthy information already in print; (c) A statement of the literary contents of the book and of the points at which they respectively begin; (d) A note giving any additional information which may be needed.

(a) In transcribing the title-page and other parts of the book it is
desirable not to omit intermediate words; if an omission is made it
should be indicated by three dots placed close together. The end of a
line should be indicated by an upright stroke.[1] It is a considerable
gain to indicate to the eye in what types the words transcribed are
printed, i.e. whether in roman, gothic letter, or italic, and in each
case whether in majuscules or minuscules ("upper or lower case"). To
do this, however, adds greatly not only to the cost of printing, but
also to the liability of error. If roman minuscules are used
throughout, or roman for the text and italic for the imprint of
colophon, the method of transliteration which the printer himself
would have used should be adopted. Many of the best modern catalogues
and bibliographies are disfigured by the occurrence in them of such
forms as "qvinqve," "qveen," "Evrope," due to an unintelligent
transliteration of the forms QVINQVE, QVEEN, EVROPE, as they occur on
title-pages at a date when "V" was the majuscule form of both "v" and
"u." If it is desired to retain the V forms the words should be
printed in majuscules. If minuscules are used, the words should be
transliterated as quinque, queen, Europe, according to the practice of
the old printers themselves.

A troublesome question often arises as to what notice should be taken
in reproducing the misprints which frequently occur in the original
titles. Bibliographers who have satisfied themselves (and their
readers) of their own accuracy may reproduce them in silence, though
it will need constant watchfulness to prevent the printer from
"setting them right." Transcribers of only average accuracy will
consult their happiness by indicating the misprint in some way, and
the frequent use of (_sic_), more especially when printed in italics,
or of the German (!), being ugly, probably the simplest plan is to add
a note at the end stating that the misprints in question occur in the
original.

(b) The "size" of a book is a technical expression for the relation of
the individual leaves to the sheet of paper of which they form a part.
A book in-folio means one in which the paper has been folded once, so
that each sheet has made two leaves. In a book in-quarto, each sheet
has been folded twice so as to make four leaves. In an octavo another
fold has produced eight leaves, and so on for books in 16mo, 32mo and
64mo. For books in twelves, twenty-fours, &c., the paper has at some
stage to be folded in three instead of in two, and there will be some
difference in form according to the way in which this is done. The
size of a book printed on handmade paper "is very simply recognized by
holding up a page to the light. Certain white lines, called
wire-lines, will be noticed, occurring as a rule about an inch apart,
and running at right angles to the fine lines. These wire-lines are
perpendicular in a folio, octavo, 32mo, and horizontal in a quarto and
16mo. In a 12mo, as the name implies, the sheet is folded in twelve;
and in the earlier part at least of the 16th century this was done in
such a way that the wire-lines are perpendicular, the height of the
sheet forming two pages, as is the case in an octavo, while the width
is divided into six instead of into four as in an octavo. The later
habit has been to fold the sheet differently, the height of the sheet
forming the width of four pages, and the width of the sheet the height
of three pages, consequently the wire-lines are horizontal" (E.G.
Duff, _Early Printed Books_, pp. 206-207).

The recognition of what is meant by the size of a book has been
obscured by the erroneous idea that the quires or gatherings of which
books are made up necessarily consist of single sheets.[2] If this
were so all folios would be in gatherings of two leaves each; all
quartos in gatherings of four leaves; all octavos in gatherings of
eights. In the case of books printed on handmade paper, this is
generally true of octavos, but to reduce the amount of sewing the
earliest folios were usually arranged in tens, i.e. in gatherings of
five sheets or ten leaves, while in Shakespeare's time English folios
were mostly in sixes. In the same way quartos are often found made up
in eights, and on the other hand the use of a half-sheet produces a
gathering of only two leaves.

When a manuscript or early printed book was being prepared for
binding, it was usual for the order in which the quires or gatherings
were to be arranged to be indicated by signing them with the letters
of the alphabet in their order, the alphabet generally used being the
Latin, in which I stands for both I and J; V for both U and V, and
there is no W. If more than twenty-three letters were needed the
contractions for _et, con, rum_ and (less often) that for _us_, were
used as additional signs, and for large books minuscules were used as
well as majuscules, and the letters were doubled. In 1472 printed
signatures came into use. If the quires or gatherings in the book to
be described are signed in print, the signatures used should be quoted
without brackets. If they are not signed, the order of the gatherings
should be noted by the letters of the alphabet in square brackets. In
each case the number of leaves in each gathering should be shown by
index-figures. Thus, six gatherings of eight leaves followed by one of
four should be represented by the symbols A-F^8 G^4. The "make-up" of
an old book in original binding is usually sufficiently shown by the
strings in the middle of each quire. In books which have been rebound
help may sometimes be obtained from the fact that between (roughly)
1750 and 1850, a period during which there was much rebinding of early
books, the gatherings before being put into their new quires were
mostly separately pressed, with the result that the outer pages of
each gathering are much smoother than the rest. But the only safe
guide to the make-up of an old book without printed signatures is a
collation by means of the watermarks, i.e. the devices with which the
papermaker as a rule marked each sheet (see PAPER). In a folio book
one of every pair of leaves should have a watermark in the middle of
the paper. In a quarto some pairs of leaves will have no watermark; in
others it will be found divided by the fold of the paper. As the great
majority of books without printed signatures are in folio or quarto,
the sequence of watermarked and un-watermarked leaves, if carefully
worked out, will mostly reveal the "make-up" of the successive
gatherings.

After the size and sequence of the gatherings has been stated, the
total number of leaves should be noted, with a mention of any
numeration of them given in the book. Any discrepancy between the
total of the leaves assigned to the successive gatherings and the
total as separately counted of course points to an error, and the
reckonings must be repeated till they tally. Errors in the printed
enumeration of the leaves of old books are common, and it is seldom
necessary to point them out in detail. When reference has to be made
to a particular page of an old book, the printed signatures offer the
readiest means, an index number placed below the letter indicating the
number of the leaf in the gathering and the addition of "recto" or
"verso" marking the upper or under page of the leaf. Thus "X4 recto"
(some bibliographers prefer the rather clumsier form "X 4 recto")
stands for the first page of the fourth leaf of the gathering signed
X. Where there are no printed signatures the leaf-number may be given,
the letters "a" and "b" above the numeral taking the place of "recto"
and "verso" (leaf 99^a). Where some leaves of a book are numbered and
others not, if the reference is to the printed numeration this should
be stated. Printed leaf numeration is found as early as 1470, and
became common about ten years later. Printed pagination did not become
common till nearly the middle of the 16th century.

The foregoing details are all directed to showing which leaves of a
book would be printed by the same pull of the press, how it was made
up for binding, and how imperfections in any copy may be detected.
They give little or no indication of the dimensions of the book. In
the case of modern editions this may be done by adding one of the
trade epithets, pott, foolscap, crown, &c., to the name of the size,
which when thus qualified denotes paper of a particular measurement
(see PAPER). As, however, these measurements are not easily
remembered, it is better to give the actual measurements in inches or
millimetres of a page of an uncut copy. In old books uncut copies are
not easily found, and it is useful instead of this to give the
measurement in millimetres of the printed portion of the page
(technically called the "type-page"), although this is subject to a
variation of about 3% in different copies, according to the degree to
which they were damped for printing. To this is added a statement of
the number of lines in the page measured. The character of the type
(roman, gothic or italic) is next mentioned, and in the case of
15th-century books, its number in the sequence of founts used by the
printer (see INCUNABULA). Finally a reference to any authoritative
description already printed completes this portion of the entry. Thus
the description of the collation of the first-dated book printed at
Augsburg, the _Meditationes_ of S. Bonaventura, printed by Guenther
Zainer in 1468, should read: Folio (a^10, b-d^8, e-g^10, h^8) 72
leaves. Type-page ([3]) 202 x 120 mm.; 35 lines. Type 1 (gothic
letter). Hain 3557.

(c) While many books, and this is especially true of early ones,
contain little or nothing beyond the bare text of a well-known work,
others are well provided, not only with commentaries which are almost
sure to be mentioned on the title-page, or in the colophon (which the
editor himself often wrote), but also with dedicatory letters,
prefaces, complimentary verses, indexes and other accessories, the
presence of which it is desirable to indicate. In these cases it is
often convenient to show the entire contents of the book in the order
in which they occur, noting the leaves or pages on which each begins.
Thus in the first edition (1590) of the first three books of Spenser's
_Faerie Queene_, the literary contents, their order, and the space
they occupy can be concisely noted by taking the successive gatherings
according to their signatures and showing what comes on each page.
Thus: A1, recto, title; verso, dedication, "To the Most Mightie and
Magnificent Empresse Elizabeth"; A2-Oo8, text of books i.-iii.; Pp1,
letter dated the 23rd of January 1589 [1590] to Sir Walter Raleigh
expounding the intention of the work; Pp3 verso, commendatory verses
signed W. R[aleigh], Hobynoll (Gabriel Harvey), R.S., H.B., W.L. and
Ignoto; Pp5-8, complimentary sonnets severally inscribed to Sir C.
Hatton, the earls of Essex, Oxford, Northumberland and Ormond, Lord
Ch. Howard, Lord Grey of Wilton and Sir W. Raleigh, and to Lady Carew
and to the Ladies in the Court; and "Faults escaped in the print";
Qq(1-4), fifteen other sonnets.

Some bibliographers prefer to reverse the order of notation, (title,
A1, recto; dedication, A1, verso, &c.), and no principle is sacrificed
in doing so, though the order suggested usually works out the more
neatly.

_Enumeration and Arrangement._--In the 18th and early 19th centuries there was a tendency, especially among French writers, to exaggerate the scope of bibliography, on the ground that it was the duty of the bibliographer to appraise the value of all the books he recorded, and to indicate the exact place which each work should occupy in a logical classification of all literature based on a previous classification of all knowledge. Bibliographers are now more modest. They recognize that the classification of human knowledge is a question for philosophers and men of science, that the knowledge of chemistry and of its history needed to make a good bibliography of chemistry is altogether extrinsic to bibliography itself; that all, in fact, to which bibliography can pretend is to suggest certain general principles of arrangement and to point out to some extent how they may be applied. The principles are neither numerous nor recondite. To illustrate the history of printing, books may be arranged according to the places and printing-houses where they were produced. For the glorification of a province or county, they are sometimes grouped under the places where their authors were born or resided. For special purposes, they may be arranged according to the language or dialect in which they are written. But, speaking generally, the choice for a basis of arrangement rests between the alphabetical order of authors and titles, a chronological order according to date of publication, a "logical" or alphabetical order according to subjects, and some combination of these methods. In exercising the choice the essential requisite is a really clear idea of the use to which the bibliography, when made, is to be put. If its chief object be to give detailed information about individual books, a strictly alphabetical arrangement "by authors and titles" (i.e. by the names of authors in their alphabetical order, and the titles of their books in alphabetical sequence under the names) will be the most useful, because it enables the student to obtain the information he seeks with the greatest ease. But while such an alphabetical arrangement offers the speediest access to individual entries, it has no other merit, unless the main object of the bibliography be to show what each author has written. If it is desired to illustrate the history and development of a subject, or the literary biography of an author, the books should be entered chronologically. If direction in reading is to be given, this can best be offered by a subject-index, in which the subjects are arranged alphabetically for speedy reference, and the books chronologically under the subject, so that the newest are always at the end. Lastly if the object is to show how far the whole field has been covered and what gaps remain to be filled, a class catalogue arranged according to what are considered the logical subdivisions of the subject has its advantages. It is important, however, to remember that, if the bulk of the bibliography is very large, a principle of arrangement which would be clear and useful on a small scale may be lost in the quantity of pages over which it extends. An arrangement which cannot be quickly grasped, whatever satisfaction it may give its author, is useless to readers, the measure of its inutility being the worn condition of the alphabetical index to which those who cannot carry a complicated "logical" arrangement in their heads are obliged to turn, in the first instance, to find what they want. It should be obvious that any system which necessitates a preliminary reference to a key or index rests under grave suspicion, and needs some clear counterbalancing gain to justify the loss of time which it entails. The main classification should always be that which will be most immediately useful to readers of the books. To throw light on the history of a subject and to indicate how far the field is covered are honourable objects for compilers, but should mostly be held subordinate to practical use. It is noteworthy also that they may often be better forwarded by means of an index or table than by the main arrangement. The history of Hain's _Repertorium Bibliographicum_, which enumerates in an alphabetical arrangement of authors and titles some 16,000 books printed in the 15th century, is a good example of this. For sixty-five years it was of the utmost use for its accurate descriptions of individual books, but threw practically no light on the history of printing. In 1891 Dr Konrad Burger published an appendix to it containing an Index of Printers, since greatly enlarged in his index to Dr Copinger's _Supplement to Hain_ (1902). The form of the index enables each printer's work to be seen at a glance, and the impetus given to the study of the history of printing was very great. But if the book had originally been arranged under Printers instead of Authors, it would have been far more difficult to use; its literary value would have been halved, and the record of the output of each press, now instantly visible, would have been obscured by the fuller entries causing it to extend over many pages.

_The Bibliography of Bibliography._--The zeal of students of early printing has provided the material for an almost exhaustive list (see INCUNABULA) of the books printed in the 15th century still extant. Of those printed in the years 1501-1536 there is a tentative enumeration in the continuation of Panzer's _Annales Typographici_ (1803), and materials are gradually being collected for improving and extending this. But the projects once formed for a universal bibliography have dwindled in proportion as the output of the press has increased, and the nearest approaches to such a work are the printed catalogue of the library of the British Museum, and that of the Bibliotheque Nationale at Paris, now in progress. Of books of great rarity unrepresented in these catalogues a fairly sufficient record exists in Brunet's _Manuel du libraire_, the bibliographical collections of Mr W.C. Hazlitt, the _Bibliographer's Manual_ by Lowndes, and the other bibliographical works enumerated in the article on book-collecting (q.v.). When a universal bibliography was recognized as an impossibility, patriotism suggested the compilation of national bibliographies, and the _Bibliotheca Britannica_ of Robert Watt (Edinburgh, 1824) remains an extraordinary example of what the zeal of a single man could accomplish in this direction. Querard's _La France litteraire_ (Paris, 1827-1839), while it gives fuller titles, is much less comprehensive, embracing mainly books of the 18th and early 19th centuries, and only such of these as appeared to the compiler to be written by "savants, historiens, et gens de lettres." In the works of Heinsius (_Allgemeines Buecherlexikon, 1700-1815_, Leipzig, 1812-1817), and Kayser (_Buecherlexikon, 1750_, &c., Leipzig, 1834, &c.) Germany possesses a fine record of her output of books during the last two centuries, and since the organization of the book-trade, contemporary lists of books, with _resumes_ and indexes issued at intervals, exist for most European countries. For the period before these became of importance in England much bibliographical material has been collected in the Catalogues of English Books printed up to the end of the year 1640, issued by the British Museum in 1884, by the John Rylands library, Manchester, in 1895, and by the University library, Cambridge, in 1900-1906. A similar record of the rich English collections in the Bodleian library, Oxford, remains a great _desideratum_. While these substitutes for a universal author catalogue have gradually been provided, similar contributions to a universal subject catalogue have been made in the form of innumerable special bibliographies compiled by students or bookmen interested in special subjects or departments of literature. The most important of these are enumerated in the bibliographical notes appended to articles in this Encyclopaedia, but many attempts have been made to compile separate catalogues of them.

The most recent of these bibliographies of bibliographies naturally
take over all that is of any value in their predecessors, and it may
suffice therefore to make special mention of the
following:--_Bibliotheca bibliographica. Kritisches Verzeichniss der
das Gesammtgebiet der Bibliographie betreffenden Litteratur des In-
und Auslandes, in systematisches Ordnung bearbeitet von Dr Julius
Petzholdt. Mit alphabetischen Namen und Sachregister_ (Leipzig, 1866),
8vo, pp. xii. 940; _Manuel de bibliographie generale_, par Henri Stein
(Paris, 1898), 8vo, pp. xx. 896; _Manuel de bibliographie historique_,
par Ch. V. Langlois (Paris, 1901), 12mo, pp. xi. 623; _A Register of
National Bibliography. With a selection of the chief bibliographical
works and articles printed in other Countries_, by W.P. Courtney
(London, 1905), 8vo, pp. viii. 631.

It should also be noted that the _List of Books of Reference in the
Reading-Room of the British Museum_, first published in 1889, and the
_Subject-index of the Modern Works added to the Library of the British
Museum in the years 1881-1900_, edited by G.K. Fortescue (supplements
published every five years), include entries of a vast number of
bibliographical works, and that an eclectic list, with a valuable
introduction, will be found in Professor Ferguson's _Some Aspects of
Bibliography_ (Edinburgh, 1900). (A. W. Po.)

FOOTNOTES:

[1] Some bibliographers prefer to use double strokes to avoid
confusion with the old-fashioned long commas. Others use a single
stroke to indicate the space between two lines and increase the
number of strokes where the space left is wider than this.

[2] It may be noted that some confusion is caused in descriptions of
books by the word "sheet," which should be restricted to the original
sheet of paper which by folding becomes folio, quarto, &c., being
applied also to the double-leaf of four pages. A word specially
appropriated to this is greatly needed, and as gatherings of two,
three, four, &c., of such double-leaves are known technically as
duernions, ternions, quaternions, &c., the double-leaf itself might
well be called a "unit."

[3] Here specify the page measured.

BIBLIOMANCY (from the Gr. [Greek: biblion], a book, and [Greek: manteia], prophecy), a form of divination (q.v.) by means of the Bible or other books. The method employed is to open the Bible haphazard and be guided by the first verse which catches the eye. Among the Greeks and Romans the practice was known under the name of _sortes Homericae_ or _sortes Virgilianae_, the books consulted being those of Homer or Virgil.

BIBRACTE, an ancient Gaulish town, the modern Mont Beuvray, near Autun in France. Here, on a hilltop 2500 ft. above sea-level, excavation has revealed a vast area of 330 acres, girt with a stone and wood rampart 3 m. long, and containing the remains of dwelling-houses, a temple of Bibractis, and the workshops of iron and bronze workers and enamellers. It was the capital of the Aedui in the time of Julius Caesar. Later on Augustus removed the inhabitants to his new town Augustodunum (Autun), to destroy the free native traditions. Another far more obscure town in Gaul, near Reims, also bore the name.

See Bulliot, _Fouilles de Beuvray_; Dechelette, _Oppidum de Bibracte_;
also references s.v. AEDUI.

BIBULUS, a surname of the Roman gens Calpurnia. The best-known of those who bore it was Marcus Calpurnius Bibulus, consul with Julius Caesar, 59 B.C. He was the candidate put forward by the aristocratical party in opposition to L. Lucceius, who was of the party of Caesar; and bribery was freely used, with the approval of even the rigid Cato (Suetonius, _Caesar_, 9), to secure his election. But he proved no match for his able colleague. He made an attempt to oppose the agrarian law introduced by Caesar for distributing the lands of Campania, but was overpowered and even personally ill-treated by the mob. After making vain complaints in the senate, he shut himself up in his own house during the remaining eight months of his consulship, taking no part in public business beyond fulminating edicts against Caesar's proceedings, which only provoked an attack upon his house by a mob of Caesar's partisans. His conduct gave rise to the jest, that Julius and Caesar were consuls during that year. When the relations of Caesar and Pompey became strained, Bibulus supported Pompey (Plutarch, _Cato Minor_, 41) and joined in proposing his election as sole consul (52 B.C.). Next year he went to Syria as proconsul and claimed credit for a victory gained by one of his officers over the Parthians, before his own arrival in the province. After the expiration of his term of office, Pompey gave him command of his fleet in the Ionian Sea. He proved himself utterly incapable; his chief exploit was the burning of thirty transports on their return from Epirus whither they had succeeded in conveying Caesar and some troops from Brundusium. He died soon afterwards (48) of fatigue and mortification (Caesar, _Bell. Civ._ iii. 5-18; Dio Cassius xli. 48). Although not a man of great importance, Bibulus showed great persistency as the enemy of Caesar. Cicero says of him that he was no orator, but a careful writer. By his wife Porcia, daughter of Cato, afterwards married to Brutus, he had three sons. The two eldest were murdered in Egypt by some of the soldiery of Gabinius; the youngest, Lucius Calpurnius Bibulus, fought on the side of the republic at the battle of Philippi, but surrendered to Antony soon afterwards, and was by him appointed to the command of his fleet. He died (about 32) while governor of Syria under Augustus. He wrote a short memoir of his step-father Brutus, which was used by Plutarch (Appian, _B.C._ iv. 136; Plutarch, _Brutus_, 13. 23).

BICE (from Fr. _bis_, a word of doubtful origin, meaning dark-coloured), a term erroneously applied in English to particular shades of green or blue pigments from the French terms _vert bis_ and _azur bis_, dark green or blue. These colours are generally prepared from basic copper carbonates, but sometimes from ultramarine and other pigments.

BICESTER, a market town in the Woodstock parliamentary division of Oxfordshire, England, 12 m. N.N.E. of Oxford by a branch of the London & North-Western railway. Pop. of urban district (1901) 3023. It lies near the northern edge of the flat open plain of Ot Moor, in a pastoral country. The church of St Eadburg, the virgin of Aylesbury, is cruciform, with a western tower, and contains examples of Norman and each succeeding style. There is, moreover, in the nave a single rude angular arch considered to be Saxon. Incorporated with a farm-house, scanty Perpendicular remains are seen of an Augustinian priory founded at the close of the 12th century. Bicester has considerable agricultural trade and a brewing industry. It is a favourite hunting centre.

The termination _cester_, commonly indicating Roman origin, does not do so here, and is perhaps copied from Alchester and Chesterton, 2 m. west of Bicester, where there is a small Roman site, probably a wayside village, at the meeting of roads from the south (Dorchester), west, north-east and east.

Bicester (Berncestre, Burencestre, Bissiter), according to the Domesday survey, was held by Robert d'Oily. In 1182 Gilbert Basset founded here an Augustinian priory, which from that date until its dissolution in 1538 became the centre of the industrial life and development of the town. In 1253 William Longspey obtained a grant of a fair at the feast of St Edburg, and a Friday market is mentioned in the 14th century. Richard II. granted a Monday market and a fair at the feast of St James the Apostle, and in 1440 an additional market was granted to be held in that part of the town called Bury-End, from this date known as Market-End. Bicester never possessed any manufactures of importance, but the fairs and markets were much frequented, and in the 16th century the cattle market was especially famous.

See J.C. Blomfield, _History of the Deanery of Bicester_ (London,
1882-1894); John Dunkin, _History of Bicester_ (London, 1816).